[User profile updated.]
[Acquired Skill: Language, English. User Rating: Proficient.]
[Acquired Skill: Language, French. User Rating: Beginner.]
[Acquired Skill: Language, Russian. User Rating: Beginner.]
[Acquired Skill: Engineering, Mechanical. User Rating: Novice.]
[Acquired Skill: Engineering, Electrical. User Rating: Competent]
[Gained experience with Skill: Language, French.]
[Gained experience with Skill: Language, Russian.]
[Gained experience with Skill: Engineering, Mechanical.]
[Gained experience with Skill: Engineering, Electrical.]
I got a bunch of language skills too then. Looks like engineering is split up which makes sense but I wonder what the others are. I didn’t do a lot of different work on that unit which makes me think that there might be other engineering skills.
[User perceived a variety of languages during transit and registered understanding of the majority of them, at least in part. Sufficient to discover the depth of you’re knowledge of each with a certain degree of accuracy.]
[There are additional engineering skills registered in Sanctum. There are also chemical, nuclear, automotive, aeronautic, nautical, nanoscale and many more.]
[There are many that overlap within the engineering field and can provide the skills to achieve goals without having the exact relevant skills but having them does allow the user to create more exacting and complex goals.]
So it’s not a locked in “You can only do this.” sort of thing? I guess that makes sense.
[It does limit what micro-patterns Sanctum can apply when user improves your skills. While this topic is present User should be informed you have pending approved micro-patterns to integrate.]
What does that mean?
[One of Sanctums core functions is to augment the Users knowledge and ability with micro-patterns that show high compatibility with the User’s cerebral pattern. The Sanctum relies on existing Skill experience and competence scores to test compatibility with stored micro-patterns.]
Micro-patterns are like instruction manuals then? Wait no, you called it my cerebral pattern. That’s the brain. So micro-patterns are chunks of brain? You’re going to try putting mini-brains in my head? I don’t want that. That’s a hard no. Gross.
Sitting down on my bed I looked around for signs of my mom coming back to our spot while I was away but I couldn’t see anything new or missing amongst the the food bags under the bed. I was used to her being asleep in the incarnations most of the time but she wasn’t at the moment. I’d have to go look for her soon to make sure she wasn’t getting herself into trouble, she was likely itching for an incarnation player by now.
[Micro-patterns are, in simplified terms, composed of recorded and refined synaptic structures from multiple studied patterns for commonalities. These micro-patterns are then compared to the User’s synaptic pattern for matching elements, this is measured as compatibility.]
What’s synaptic? I looked around for the old man with the ventilator to ask if he’d seen mom but he must have something to do today.
[The human brain contains a chemical electrical network composed of neurons, these neurons use synapses as junctions between other neurons and other brain cells for neurotransmission.]
[While the precise layout of neurons are usually in flux the synaptic junctions are much more persistent and take a large part in the retentions of memories and knowledge. The Sanctum can initiate the User’s brain to form new synapses and motivate neurons to make connections to them in the correct order as prescribed for previously stored micro-patterns that reach compatibility thresholds.]
So that wouldn’t give me other people’s memories? Like I’ll think I’m some forty year old corpo welder if I keep learning about engineering?
[Early in the Sanctum testing process there was some minor personality influence detected from integrated micro-patterns but with further development all detectable traces of foreign influence was gradually reduced until repeated tests of multiple Users found no discernible personality influence from Sanctum functions.]
Still creeps me out a little. But if you say it’s just knowledge then I don’t see it being that bad for me. Do you need to give me the knowledge? Can you just not do it?
[All Sanctum functions are subject to User opt-out. No Sanctum function can be imposed on a User that has stated they do not want that function activated.]
Oh, well that puts me at ease. You can go ahead with the skill thing, if it makes me feel weird we can just deal with stuff then. Can you keep track of my personality for weird changes?
[Sanctum already tracks such data for safety procedures. Sanctum will inform User if their personality deviates as a matter of medical concern.]
Great. Thanks sanctum.
[Integrating pending micro-patterns based on Skill compatibility…]
I was glad I was sitting on my bed because I basically blacked out for a moment and even when I came back from that I couldn’t shake the complete disorientation. I tried to think about something but I couldn’t even begin to get a handle on any single thing.
Then the sensation was gone and I felt really refreshed, like I’d just got a nostril unblocked but in my brain.
[Skills integrated.]
I thought about some of my scrapping work and was struck by a weird dissonance where I had no memory of the memories that were clearly there linking together with the things I was thinking about. The new memories had no context or source I could remember where I’d learned them from.
I realized the way I’d got the chips out of the circuits was effective but crude and likely damaging to some models of chips. I hadn’t considered cutting the board out around the chips; which was more of an industry standard when scrapping purely due to more modern and expensive chips having tiny mechanical kill switches in response to common removal.
I hadn’t considered that because I didn’t know that earlier.
The more I thought about the subject the more little errors and ways to improve what I’d done. I also found myself branching thoughts into similar subjects relevant to it, I found I knew how to use a lot more wiring logic than before and I knew how a cars engine worked. From the drivetrain to the controller circuit. I’d never even opened the hood on an intact car.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Shaking my head and getting to my feet I knew this was amazing and everything but life hadn’t stopped. I had to check in on my mom and get the scrap sold. I’d then have some money to work with, maybe I could try some other skills.
What about fighting? Can you make me able to defend myself? Or is just learning stuff.
[Sanctum has stored patterns with relevant combat oriented micro-patterns of many of the know styles of combat with and without weapons, ranged and melee. Some of these include vehicular combat from motorcycle to interplanetary heavy cruiser.]
Would that just be like the methods or would it actually make me actually able to fight? Wait, what? You know how to fly a heavy cruiser?
[Sanctum micro-patterns also include elements of muscle-memory and instinctual behaviors as a fact of their construction. It would be quite difficult to have these pattern types stored as memory while separating out the physical elements of the pattern as the pattern is very physical by function.]
[The User would be able to fight as well as their competency of their Skill in whatever method chosen would indicate as well as similar applicable methods similar enough to share compatibility.]
So if I could get my competency score up with like knives or whatever it would make it so I’d be good enough with a baton? Because they’re both melee?
[In User’s example both are one handed weapons but one is blunt and requires different striking movements.]
[User would find their combat reflexes improved and their ability to defend against strikes similar but would find attacking would be less effective overall compared to their knife until they reached a similar level of Skill with both weapons.]
That sounds very helpful. I know there’s some implants that can guide movements for self defense but all I’ve heard about their actual use is they are awkward and really heavy on the neural load.
Well anyway. Do you think any of the skills you have might be useful in tracking down my mom? Something I can try to get going quickly?
[Many.]
[Depending on how the User would like to find the location of their mother there are number of generalist skills that can aid in information gathering.]
[Current recommendations are a combination of Tracking and Tracing which improve the ability for the User to follow physical signs and to follow digital footprint of their target. The combination of both of these in an urban setting is beneficial.]
[Another recommendation are the Skills Negotiation, Etiquette and Impersonation. These three in conjunction all the User to move through delicate social situations without exposing their identity while collecting information they need.]
[There are other recommendations but their either require higher risk or a large time frame to gather the required experience.]
Let's go with the tracking skills first and if I run into a dead end or an issue with people I’ll try the second. I’ll try and get a combat skill somewhere in there as well.
So what do I need to do to learn them? Do ask you to add them in?
[You’ll need to engage in enough of the activity until your brain builds the structures needed to reach a minimum level of compatibility. Sanctum will inform the User when they have achieved this and has performed the selection of compatible micro-patterns.]
Alright then. Just look around for signs of mom and where she might have gone, detective style I guess.
I started with the food packets in the bags, looking for signs that they’d been taken from. If there was a lot of food gone then mom might be going somewhere for an unknown amount of time. At least the majority of the stuff was still there, I couldn’t remember every item but it seemed similar to when I’d went to sleep.
I started checking around the bed looking for something to give me an idea. Maybe a sign of someone visiting. There were a few tiny detritus items but they had probably just been blown around from the few dozen people living in the tent structure. Nothing stood out really.
Looking under my mom’s pillow I did find her small case stash of incarnation feeds, little palm sized boxes with an input on the side. Judging from the contents mom had gotten into some sort of simple, old world farming life trend recently. The case wasn’t damaged or anything and the fact that it was still here meant she likely wasn’t heading off to some incarnation den to zone out for a while. I’d have preferred if that was the case though, at least I’d know she was likely fine; if she was trusting a den enough to go there she likely knew the crowd enough to know it was safe.
[Minimum compatibility reached for the Tracking Skill. Does the User want to integrate it now?]
Yeah. I’m not getting much so far. Maybe it will help.
[Integrating micro-pattern based on Skill compatibility…]
Much smaller wave of disorientation this time, but I handled it a little better as well.
[User profile updated.]
[Acquired Skill: Tracking. User Rating: Untrained.]
Rubbing my head a bit I started looking around the area again, maybe I had missed something.
I had missed a few things apparently, every detail I’d went over before seemed important compared to before and needed more focus. There were slight scuff marks on the ground near the foot of the bed and a cig cartridge rolled underneath near the leg.
Someone had been standing here, smoked and ejected a cartridge. Not many locals smoked cartridges because they were expensive and a lot of them weren’t trusted because they were mostly a corpo thing. So likely a corpo of some kind here then.
My mom had been taken by the corp for something, maybe something to do with the house? Sanctum what traces of you were left that Kitsuban might be interested in?
[Virtually none. My path through the housing complex along with several other erratic paths were covered with a gray dust that if examined could be discovered to be the broken and burnt out remains of a passing nanite colony. These remains were likely collected by Kitsuban corporation to study the likely trajectory of my escape and eventual status as destroyed.]
So they might want to talk to mom because… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a routine thing for houses hit directly by nanites? I’m a gonk, they’re not clearing house are they? Just zeroing anyone too close to their project?
[It would be unlikely at this point that such a procedure would take place, with so few staff present and without the area being locked off completely. There has been more than enough time for word of events, as people understand them, to spread.]
Your right, maybe, but we need to find mom quick. Being tangled with corpos isn’t good for anyone and she is too disconnected to deal with them properly. She’ll end getting pulled into some sort of deal or scheme, she’d been duped by things like that before and just runs away from problems until she’s written off.
The last time it had happened was four years ago when mom got tangled up in a corp program that demanded credits in exchange for “discounted” and “neural healing” incarnations seemingly designed to reduce incarnation addiction while also revitalizing the brain of the user of the synaptic damage caused by the dangerous peaks of feedback in some incarnations.
I’d been a lot younger and when she’d told me about it and at the time I’d been happy she had found something that might make her better emotionally. Mom was fine when calm but when something too happy or too sad or too emotional in some way she’d rapidly become unstable and start shutting down, failing to take in new information properly when spoken to, repeating soothing motions and then sometimes just fainting.
It turned out to be another corpo scam to get cash from poor, dumb or desperate people. The incarnations they sold were mostly just empty headed meditation junk that were just a one minute loop. The therapy documentation was just generic post trauma therapy stuff that didn’t even discuss incarnations. The money was taken from the masses and the Fulder Medical corp faded from sight and shut down before a month was out.
Whatever. Sanctum, how do I do that digital tracking thing? Would it let me look at cameras or something?
[The Tracing Skill has a lot of layers to it depending on the access to the devices the User is trying to trace their target through. This also includes elements of netrunning if the User gains access to the equipment needed to netrun safely.]
[Most Skills benefit from support from other Skills and this is particularly true of the Tracing Skill. Hacking, Programming and Electronic Warfare are the Skills which can give a greater access for better Tracing success by gaining access to a wider array of systems and deeper access of those systems.]
Will the tracing skill let me find mom without other skill? I don’t really know if I have enough time for lots of skill practice.
[Accessing the local IR grid and scanning for evidence of User’s mother’s cerebral implant accessing the grid along with accessing the maintenance camera footage archive for pictures of your mother passing by should be achievable with only the Tracing skill and Sanctum assistance in hacking the surface level protections of the IR cluster.]
[Deeper evidence such as accessing connected implants for evidence of digital correspondence with User’s mother or executing functions such as a forced connection to an unconnected implant in line of sight will require additional Skills for support.]
I’ve heard of netrunners before doing crazy stuff miles away from them while they sit in a chair somewhere else. I’d guess you need to be chromed up big time for that kind of thing though.
[To operate as a netrunner you need some form of cerebral cooling, or full body cooling. You also need either an implanted or external deck to compile and run your programs and to decompile new scripts or write your own.]
[The more active you are while netrunning the higher the temperature your cerebral implant reaches, which can lead to injury or death. This can be offset by external heat sinks, external RAM storage, brain augmentation or blood cooling systems.]
So it’s not all just whoosh and everything works out then. Nothing ever is I guess. Let’s head to an IR cluster and get started.